Wednesday, April 30, 2008

John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil, was interviewed by John Roberts on CNN this morning. Here are just a few paragraphs.

ROBERTS: Sen. Hillary Clinton wants to slap you with a 50 percent tax on what she calls windfall profit, profit above a certain level. Is that a good idea?

HOFMEISTER: Look at our revenues and our income for the last quarter. If we had made $7.8 million on $114 million of revenue, nobody would call that excessive, because that's 7½ percent. We made $7.8 billion profit on $114 billion revenue -- same 7½ percent. So to me that is not an excessive number when banks and pharmaceuticals and IT companies earn a whole lot more.

ROBERTS: Would it hurt you if she put in place this tax on the windfall profits?

HOFMEISTER: Sure it would. It would slow down investment. Taxing the oil companies was tried in the '80s. It drove us to do imports, which is exactly the problem we have today.

ROBERTS: Where is the top of all this? How high can the price of a barrel of oil go? How high will the cost of a gallon of gasoline go?

HOFMEISTER: I heard somebody say the other day it's as long as a piece of string. We don't know.

ROBERTS: The president of OPEC said $200 a barrel.

HOFMEISTER: Yeah, well, there are some countries out there subsidizing the cost of their energy to their consumers and industries to compete with America -- or against America -- because they think America won't solve the problem.

ROBERTS: You're saying you have no idea where the top is.

HOFMEISTER: We don't know. But we should produce more oil in this country.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008


Above is a picture that I took last evening of former Attorney General John Ashcroft at Denison University. Below is a picture that I took last week of National Review writer Jonah Goldberg also at Denison. The picture quality isn't that good because of the dim lighting and because I wasn't sitting very close to the speakers. Only about 50 people showed up for Jonah Goldberg so I had the chance to meet him afterwards at the book signing. But every seat was taken last night to hear Ashcroft. Although there were a few expected questions from anti-war people last evening, most questions were serious and respectful. So I'm definitely glad that I was able to hear both speakers, and I think that even liberals leave these events with a better understanding of conservative ideas.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

The Zaxby's Invasion

Ever since I graduated from college I have hoped that Zaxby's would open a restaurant in Ohio. But I had checked their website over the years and could see that they were only located in the Southeast. So I was very excited to hear that the first Zaxby's without a drive-through window opened this month near OSU in Columbus. And more are scheduled to be built. A lot more! It's difficult to imagine so I'll just pass on what the article in The Columbus Dispatch had to say.

The corporation will own and operate the first of several Zaxby's in Ohio, and then will look for franchisees to take over. Amy Camp Pritchett, franchise- administration director, said Columbus alone could be home to as many as 40 of the restaurants, with as many as 90 built in central Ohio within several years.

Anyway, I'm excited. My only regret is that Zaxby's discontinued the Italian Chicken Sandwich a few years ago. But with 90 Zaxby's on their way, I'm not complaining!

Thursday, April 10, 2008

"After the charitable endeavor of Idol Gives Back, it was back to the business of elimination on American Idol. American Idol is never a show to steer away from controversy, which was evidenced by the American Idol finalists performing an encore of “Shout To The Lord.” As Reality TV Magazine reported, the song was edited to change “My Jesus” to “My Shepherd” during the Idol Gives Back performance. This time, the finalists sang the “My Jesus, My Savior” line."

From Reality TV Magazine

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

"Religious teaching straight to your iPod"

Walker pays $29.99 a month to a company called SermonAudio.com, which allows him to upload as much audio for podcasts as he wants.

More than 1 million sermons are accessed each month from the site. It's owned and operated by Steven Lee, a Korean-born graduate of Bob Jones University.

"We definitely try to bill ourselves as an economical way to reach a large number of people," says Lee, a computer programmer and graphic designer who runs his site from an upstairs room in his home in Simpsonville, S.C.

From USA Today

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